Smartest Guy at the Bar: UFC 164 Edition

Anthony Pettis is on of MMA's most dynamic strikers. | Photo:
Dave Mandel/Sherdog.com

The BMO Harris Bradley Center -- yes, that’s the venue’s actual
name -- in Milwaukee once again hosts a UFC event on Saturday.

UFC lightweight champion Benson
Henderson will try to defend his belt against Wisconsin native
Anthony
Pettis after Frank Mir and
Josh
Barnett try to rip each other’s limbs off. The final WEC
champion has the arduous task of improving upon his 2010
performance against Henderson, when Pettis defied gravity and
debuted the “Showtime Kick.” Pettis may have to jump off Herb Dean and
Bruce Buffer into a 360-degree kick to one-up what he did last time
around against “Bendo.”

How We Got HereT.J.
Grant earned a shot at lightweight gold by blitzing Gray
Maynard at UFC 160, but injury postponed the Canadian’s hopes
at a championship. Pettis was originally slated to face Jose Aldo for
the featherweight title at UFC 163, but Pettis too went down to
injury. Luckily for Pettis, title shots are popping up all over the
place like a game of Whac-A-Mole, and he is holding the mallet.

Former UFC heavyweight champions Mir and Barnett take over co-main
event duties, with both fighters hold storied careers spanning over
a decade. Chad Mendes
puts his three-fight winning streak on the line against former
Henderson victim Clay Guida in
a featherweight matchup, representing just how good and exciting
the 145-pound division has become.

Three Years in the Making
Ever since Pettis’ foot connected with Henderson’s face at WEC 53,
fans have wondered when lightning would strike again. The WEC’s
final bout summed up all that was good about the promotion:
high-level fighters with chips on their shoulders from fighting in
a “lesser” organization putting it all on the line and delivering
electrifying fights. The jury was still out on whether or not the
WEC lightweights could hang with the cream of the crop in the UFC,
but fans already knew how exciting the likes of Henderson, Pettis,
Donald
Cerrone and Jamie Varner
could be. Pettis dropped his first UFC bout, while Henderson has
yet to lose inside the Octagon.

Keith
Mills

MMA fans have pined for Mir vs. Barnett.

At last, their paths converge again on Saturday
night, and it’s about time. It will be nearly impossible to
replicate their first fight, including the Showtime Kick, but that
doesn’t mean fans won’t wear out the edge of their seats waiting
for the next beer-spilling, jaw-dropping moment.

A Decade in the Making
Few heavyweights boast such long-tenured success as Barnett and
Mir. Both fighters spent the better part of the last decade in the
top 10, and both have held UFC gold. “Warmaster” Barnett wore the
heavyweight crown shortly after Mir made his UFC debut in 2001. A
matchup between the young, submission-savvy heavyweights had fight
fans drooling. Both fighters possessed a combination of submission
skill, strength and an all-around game that positioned the fight as
a can’t-miss, top-notch affair. But, after defeating Randy
Couture for the title at UFC 36, Barnett tested positive for a
banned substance and was released by the promotion. Since then, the
fight existed only as a “what if?” -- a question which will finally
be answered on Saturday.

Say What?
Henderson and Pettis’ first fight laid the groundwork for a
potential rivalry for the ages. Both fighters were exciting
prospects in their early 20s, still improving with each fight. The
question wasn’t so much about whether a rematch would happen, but
exactly how many times we would see the pair square off. So often
in this sport, the fans’ perspective was far more dynamic than the
fighters’. Neither guy brings up the other all that often, despite
constantly being asked. The past three years could have been spent
throwing gasoline on the flames of this rivalry. Instead, the
champion has thrown sand on the fire with quotes like this one from
a recent UFC media conference call: “It’s not my place to put a
name on it and call it what it is. That’s for you guys to do.
That’s your job. That’s the media’s job, the fans’ job to call it
what it is. My job is to beat people up. That’s it.”

Useless Fact
You want a card filled with competitive matchups? UFC 164 is just
your bag, baby. By straight Vegas odds, the pay-per-view portion of
the card is nearly all pick ‘em fights, with the exception of Chad
Mendes’ status as a 4-to-1 favorite over Clay Guida. In fact, no
other fighter is more than a 2-to-1 underdog on the entire card --
a rare feat in combat sports. Compare that to UFC 163, where only
three fighters -- Thales
Leites, Sergio
Moraes and Francimar Bodao -- were less than 2-to-1 favorites.
Every other matchup consisted of a native Brazilian as a huge
favorite over a foreigner, or a Brazil-versus-Brazil fight. Good
luck wagering against your friends. Can’t we just bet that all the
fighters will have a good time?

Awards Watch
Based on pure nostalgia alone, Pettis and Henderson will likely
walk away with “Fight of the Night” bonuses. It’ll be well earned
if their second fight is anywhere near as good as their first. If
not, Dustin
Poirier and Erik Koch
should bring the fireworks, too. ... Because the matchmaking of UFC
164 is so good, “Knockout” and “Submission of the Night” awards are
tough to predict. Barnett and Mir are both capable of ripping a
rhino’s horn off, but neither has been submitted in their careers.
Mendes, with the help of new coach Duane Ludwig,
is on a three-fight KO streak, but Guida has never been stopped
with strikes. I’m going undercard-heavy this time around: Soa Palelei
versus Nikita
Krylov produces the night’s big knockout, and Kyung Ho
Kang pulls off an impressive submission against Chico Camus.
It’s always nice to see the undercard guys cashing bonus checks.